


The Solitude of Longing

by leseclaireurs



Category: xxxHoLic, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28665300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leseclaireurs/pseuds/leseclaireurs
Summary: Lan Xichen sees the red gleam of blood on his brother’s chin as he asks their uncle, “What is right? What is wrong?” and knows what must be done. When the night comes and the disciples standing watch fall asleep, he takes Wangji's hand. He mutters a small noise of protest, but Lan Xichen plays a long, trembling note on his xiao and sends Lan Wangji across the dimensions to the Space-Time Witch.
Relationships: Doumeki Shizuka & Watanuki Kimihiro, Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn
Kudos: 12





	The Solitude of Longing

_ O gather up the brokenness and bring it to me now  
The fragrance of those promises you never dared to vow  
The splinters that you carry, the cross you left behind  
Come healing of the body  
Come healing of the mind _

Leonard Cohen, Come Healing

* * *

Lan Xichen sees the red gleam of blood on his brother’s chin as he asks their uncle, “What is right? What is wrong?” and knows what must be done. When the night comes and the disciples standing watch fall asleep, he takes Wangji's hand. He mutters a small noise of protest, but Lan Xichen plays a long, trembling note on his xiao and sends Lan Wangji across the dimensions to the Space-Time Witch.

He falls somewhat unceremoniously at her feet. Watanuki rushes forward to help him, only to pause when he sees Lan Wangji’s back. 

“Yuuko-san,” he murmurs.

She tells him to get Doumeki and take him to the shrine. “It will help purify his wounds. Later, we can address what brought him here.”

After Watanuki leaves, Mokona helps her speak to Lan Xichen. 

+

The day Lan Wangji wakes up, Maru and Moro help Yuuko into an ink-black kimono. It’s almost plain by her standards, but the wood-grained silk is of the highest quality and trimmed with a sliver of crimson under-robes. As Watanuki gets roped into tying her obi, he admires the subtle lotus flower patterns woven into the dark gray silk and her butterfly obidome serves as a lovely grace note to the entire look. 

When she enters the room, Doumeki is helping Lan Wangji sit up. He sees the bottom of her robes and jerks violently. Watanuki thinks he hears the fragment of a name, “-ei Ying?” but he can’t be sure. Lan Wangji raises his head with a look of desperate hope in his eyes.

When he sees Yuuko-san's face, the hope gutters out. The devastation in his face is haunting but short-lived and within seconds, the only trace of what has passed is in the tightening of his lips.

Yuuko kneels, cradling Mokona. Lan Wangji looks her in the eyes, emotion locked away. 

“I don’t know who you are.”

She answers, “I am the Witch of the Dimensions, Lan Wangji. I grant wishes, for a price. The person who sent you must have thought you had a wish.”

Lan Wangji’s voice is low and quiet. He starts, “A man I know…” Watanuki almost expects Yuuko to leer, to make a lascivious joke, but she remains still, waiting for the man to finish.

He corrects himself. “A man I knew. He’s gone.”

This time, Yuuko’s face is the one that changes. Her lips twist. “No one can resurrect the dead.”

“I know.” 

Yuuko says, “That’s quite commendable, you know. So many have failed to accept this fundamental truth.” So many lives have been thrown in disarray because of this failure. “But your brother managed to send you to my store, so therefore you must have a wish.” 

His reply is even. “I do not.”

Yuuko stands and approaches Lan Wangji. Her long fingers caress his eyes, his temples, his heart. He does not flinch. She tells him, “There are many ways to see,” and turns. Watanuki prepares to follow her out, but she shakes her head and tells him, “Stay. He may realize something.” 

+

The shrine is quiet as the night falls, and Watanuki’s complaints are more out of habit than true discontent, even when he realizes he has to share a futon with Doumeki. After the excitement of the day, sleep comes quickly, only for Watanuki to get woken up by a shout and a sob. He gropes around for his glasses and turns to Doumeki, whose face is bleak. He says, “It’s been like this every night.”

“Every night?” 

Doumeki nods. “We could drug him,” but he grimaces at the thought. Sleep does not come quickly after that. But when it finally does, Watanuki dreams.

_ He finds Doumeki’s grandfather on the back porch, polishing a lacquered black kitsune mask. He smiles at Watanuki, but says nothing, focusing on the task at hand. When he is done, Haruka-san stands up and walks to another room. He places the mask up on the kamidana, alongside bowls of salt, water blessed by Zashiki-warashi, and freshly milled rice. The grains practically gleam in the dark room. He proceeds to bow twice, clap twice. As he completes the final bow, a mittened paw appears out of thin air to collect each offering. The scent of oden wafts through the room.  _

When Watanuki wakes up, he knows what he must do. He looks for the room with the kamidana, but cannot find it, and so he goes back to Doumeki and prods him, somewhat violently, awake. Doumeki shamelessly refuses to move until Watanuki makes him breakfast, but once he eats he makes quick work of finding the mask, tucked away in storage. They take the mask to the store and Yuuko summons the yumekai. 

She lights a tapir-shaped incense burner. The scent of sandalwood is overwhelming and after a moment the Dream-Seller materializes from the smoke. He tries to drive a hard bargain, but everything Doumeki’s clan touches shines with spiritual purity, and so Watanuki is able to trade the fox-dream fragment for an exceptional dream balloon. 

That night, Watanuki ties the balloon to Lan Wangji’s wrist while he sleeps.

+

Lan Wangji dreams. 

_ An ornery donkey feasts on a pile of apples. These apples are as red as Wei Wuxian’s hair ribbons, which flutter in the wind when Wei Wuxian suddenly appears, dancing across a rickety log bridge. He looks smaller and thinner, but he moves with the same fluid grace. He stops midway when a reed butterfly lands on his shoulder. He turns to greet the butterfly, only to find Lan Wangji now standing behind him. _

_ The smile that blooms on Wei Wuxian’s face is incandescent, warm as lantern flame.  _

Lan Wangji wakes up.

+

After the dream, Lan Wangji does a little better. He sleeps through the night more often than not and his wounds are closing up. Doumeki is pleased by the progress, but Watanuki frets. Lan Wangji’s face is thin. Polite as he is, he eats, but with little relish and it is jarring after years of pouring food into Doumeki’s black hole of a stomach. Watanuki isn’t used to this kind of lukewarm reaction to his cooking, but he won't be defeated. He rolls up his sleeves and heads to the open-air morning market. 

Normally he goes to the supermarket, but desperate times call for the freshest produce. A granny with a kerchief in her hair hawks wild greens, picked from the mountains just this morning. Another sells fresh-pressed tofu in a neon floral tracksuit and matching visor. Watanuki considers her stall, but ultimately decides to keep looking. He wanders further, admiring a bent-backed ojii-san’s range of tsukemono. He’s considering the pickles when his eyes fall first on a lovely lotus floral arrangement and then on an even lovelier young man. The man smiles with his whole face and Watanuki blushes. He coughs and makes a show of sampling the seeds, weighing the lotus root links. They are satisfactory. When he goes to pay, studiously avoiding eye contact, the merchant winks and throws in a bag of river shrimp for free. 

Watanuki, with his tender maiden’s heart, prepares a lavish bento. The largest bottom tier is filled with eight-grain porridge, artfully garnished with clusters of lotus seeds and a bamboo forest made from strips of dried red dates. For the second tier, he carves flowers out of peeled lotus root slices and simmers them with burdock and carrot in a delicate glaze of soy sauce and sugar. He decides on renkon hasamiage for the final tier. He peels and deveins the river shrimp and does not think about the handsome young merchant. Using a cleaver, he makes his own ground pork and shrimp filling, which gets sandwiched between slices of lotus root, dipped in batter, and fried to a golden crisp.

He grinds his teeth, but asks Yuuko for a charm to prevent the dish from getting damp with condensation. Her chuckle as she filches a piece of stuffed lotus root sends a shiver down his spine; he knows he’ll be paying for that with some unspeakably humiliating task in the future, but renkon hasamiage is best fresh out of the fryer and his professional pride demands the use of some black arts. She paints him a talisman and he slaps it on the lid and wraps the whole thing in an usagi-print furoshiki.

+

When Lan Wangji opens the second tier to see the lacy roots, the smallest puff of air escapes his lips. He remembers the burned out lotus ponds in the Burial Mounds. He remembers how Wei Wuxian’s eyes would soften as he looked at Jiang Yanli, the way he’d throw an arm around Jiang Cheng’s tensed shoulders. His hand shakes.

In that moment, Watanuki finally understands what Yuuko said. He understands Lang Wangji’s wish.

(To dispel the heavy weight of Lan Wangji’s emotions, he nudges Doumeki. Doumeki, thick as mud, turns and asks, very loudly, “What?” Truly, he cannot read the room. Watanuki breathes heavily, gritting his teeth. He counts to ten and then proceeds to savagely pinch Doumeki’s thigh beneath the table, slanting his eyes to the bento. Twice. Right when Watanuki is about to actually explode, the idiot finally gets the message and reaches for the porridge. 

Watanuki settles into his outrage with practiced ease and squawks like a flock of angry geese. Doumeki simply sticks a finger in his ear and has the gall. the gall! to order Watanuki to bring him a bowl and utensils. Watanuki knows he brought this upon himself, but Doumeki’s ingratitude still takes his breath away, every single time. Mokona giggles, before bounding into Lan Wangji’s lap to cuddle.

  
A small battle wages in the corner of Lan Wangji’s mouth, but ultimately, a tiny smile unfurls and Watanuki knows his oncoming rage migraine was worth it.)

+

Later, Lan Wangji sends them eight jugs of Emperor’s Smile and a drawing of an angry black goose with glasses from A-Yuan. 

“Is that supposed to be me?!” splutters Watanuki, while Yuuko cackles and Mokona sings, “It’s perfect!” 

Yuuko demands drinks and Mokona’s chants of “Otsumami! Otsumami!” follow Watanuki into the store’s kitchen. Before getting out the drink set, he secures the drawing on the refrigerator door and smiles. He thinks it is a fair payment. He is wrong. 

  
The true payment Yuuko takes lies in the time Watanuki spent with Lan Wangji. While he may have helped their broken customer from Gusu, he should have gained something in return. Such payments are risky, but she hopes that in exchange for a dinner and a dream, Watanuki learned this truth: 

Death does not have to be the end, as long as there are memories. 

  
+

Much much later, when the ashes of Guanyin temple begin to settle - 

Despite his numerous responsibilities as Chief Cultivator, Lan Wangji gains word that Wei Wuxian has found his way to Yunmeng. It is mere coincidence that he hears a petition for help from villagers near Yunping City on the same day and Lan Jingyi just happens to be serving tea in the room when Lan Wangji mentions these developments to Lan Qiren. The boy rushes out of the room and commandeers a rescue mission with Sizhui and the rest of their little quartet.

When they arrive in Yunping, they are not prepared for what they face. While the temple has crumbled, Jin Guangyao’s lingering resentment has permeated through the air of the city. Newly departed souls feast on the rich taste of his hurt and hatred and in doing so, the tethers to their past begin to fray. 

As a result, it is difficult to follow Lan Qiren’s edict, “Liberate, suppress, eliminate.” All their usual lessons have no effect and it must be said: Lan Jingyi does lose his head a little when a particularly greedy ghost, bloated on Jin Guangyao’s resentment, turns on him with a terrifyingly calm smile. Fairy has to summon Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian for the whole ordeal to come to an end. 

Afterwards, Jin Ling helps Lan Sizhui send a report back to Lan Wangji via the Jin clan’s spirit butterflies. Lan Wangji receives the news and suggests the juniors accompany Wei Wuxian back to Cloud Recesses for more lessons. He also asks Sizhui to bring back some ingredients that are difficult to procure in Gusu. 

Lan Sizhui is an obedient son and so he does as he is asked. However, a streak of mischief from his days with Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian remains, because he also brings back Sect Leader Jiang. 

As Lan Wangji serves the lotus and pork rib soup that Watanuki taught him how to make, he remembers what the Time-Space Witch once said and Jiang Yanli may have died, but she still remains in the shape of Jin Ling’s rare smiles and the laughter that erupts from Wei Wuxian when Jiang Cheng realizes his bowl has only lotus root and no meat.

Jin Ling sniffs, “Uncle, grow up,” and cowers only a tiny bit when Jiang Cheng turns on him. 

In the end, Jiang Cheng shoots Lan Wangji some extremely filthy looks, but he also allows them to send Watanuki Yunmeng’s third-best batch of hefengjiu. 

“It was edible, I suppose. And it’s not his fault Hanguang-jun was a bad student,” Jiang Cheng grouses. Lan Wangji grips Bichen reflexively, while Wei Wuxian laughs and laughs.

+

Watanuki receives the liquor with a smile that is laced with the bitter taste of wormwood. He is now the owner of the store and unlike Lan Wangji, he is still waiting for the person who has left him. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story because Lan Wangji's 16 years of solitude made me think about grief and longing and ofrendas and xxxholic. 
> 
> Title comes from Elayna Boynton's cover of Leonard Cohen's Come Healing, which is lovely and what I wanted for LWJ.
> 
> Kimihiro (evidently) means prophet, so I like to imagine that as he tied the balloon on LWJ’s wrist, the dream changed from a memory dream to become a premonitory dream. I also like to imagine that Doumeki saw the attractive lotus merchant flirting with Watanuki through their shared eye and was Not Pleased.
> 
> In this universe, LWJ still grieves and regrets and brands himself when drunk and looks for WWX, just a little less frantically. Memories and dreams aren’t a magic cure-all, but he does remember their promises made by lantern light and distracts himself from grief by protecting the weak and cooking A-Yuan dishes he thinks WWX would have cooked for the Wens (except WWX was a trash cook so… while the food is delicious, they don’t actually spark any memories).
> 
> In an alternate version of this fic, LXC trades his lifetime's store of happiness for his brother's happy ending and LWJ actually spends his three years of seclusion with Doumeki and Watanuki, learning how to cook and looking sadly/enviously at the bickering morons. He also hooks up with the hot lotus seller and definitely cries about it afterwards. This brilliant version came from @almostcoherent but I... am too lazy to write it. I do enjoy thinking about it though bc I am fully on board the Lan Wangji fucks train.


End file.
